Hey guys, I'm back after being away from the site for a while-
Oh boy.
I... hmm... Well, I'm trying to figure out how to put this... This is politics, guys. When I see people mentioning that they considered calling up the levees because of these Royals, I feel like beating my head against a wall. Besides the simple fact that doing so would bankrupt us and would completely fail to actually make anything better, it would very likely completely shatter any semblance of progress we've made. I said it way,
way back at the beginning of the quest. The Sonissimmo, Capo, and even the Vassal Houses, are going to be acting in their best interests, and at times they are going to be poking and prodding us. Expecting them to ever fully "toe the line" is a exercise in futility. We are not some absolute monarch, we are the first among peers. Any reaction along the lines of "we've done so much for them so they should totally fall in line and any step off that line is a personal insult that we should jump straight to the nuclear option for" leaves me with a headache. Yes, it's a problem, and they need to be reprimanded in some way, but the sheer personal feeling and outrage I saw as I was catching up left me bemused. Absolutely nothing about this turn of events surprised me. This is how politics works. Everyone's out for themselves, and if you're the guy on top, then you get stuck with balancing everything. I can guarantee that Tellar would be pulling similar shenanigans if we were playing Sonissimmo.
It's not politics if everybody's happy.
I hate politics.
Alright then, to look at the actual situation, I do have something of a proposal. First, though, a couple notes about the actual event in question, that being the construction of Royals for the Sonissimmo. Two mitigating factors in how we should view this event are the person who carried it out, and the nature of constructing ships itself. Obviously, this was done by Blake, who has a bone to pick with Evelyn at the very least, and likely the Tellar in general. It required some level of complicity from factions of the Sonissimmo, but wasn't an action that was directly endorsed by the House. The other factor is that it takes at least a year to construct a Royal, so this had to have started much earlier, closer to the coup and when Sonissimmo was less sure about its place in Sartier. I consider those two things to be important points that have been glossed over so far, and influence the way that I propose handling the situation.
Beyond that, though, I feel that most people are approaching this from the wrong direction. A lot of people are taking this event as "How can we slap down the Sonissimmo so hard that they become a new world axis" (Just a little hyperbole.
). I would rather look at it with a different question, that being "What can we gain from this event?" The answer to that is pretty obvious: the ability to produce Royals for ourselves. It's not really something that we've considered previously, but we can use this precedent to get ourselves access to better ships, and even start spreading them out amongst the Sartierian fleets. That's a good thing because I agree with
@veekie: more Royals on the waves is better for us. If Tranquility or Teuv comes knocking, the more hulls we can muster, the better. Obviously, they can also serve as a destabilizing influence, so we are also going to have to take some additional measures to prevent that.
In light of all of these things, here is my proposal: We introduce and endorse the idea of House Royals. A House that can afford to do so can commission Royals from the Balan Arsenal. They shall bear all the costs of producing them, as well as all of the upkeep. They can use these Royals for defense of their harbors, intercepting pirates, pleasure yachts, whatever. However, if the call goes out for the Royal Navy to mobilize, all House Royals immediately fall back under the Royal Navy's command.
This has a couple benefits, mostly in that we begin proliferating Royals and pushing most of the costs in producing them away from ourselves. We also gain access to Royals for ourselves. We get more income from providing lumber for the Royals.
I also feel that this neatly wraps up the issue with Sonissimmo by adding a few more conditions. Part of the reason these four Royals were built is because they wanted a security blanket. Great, they have the first House Royals, so that's their security blanket. They feel safer, we have more Royals for the fleet when things get serious. However, because they went against the treaty, lied about what they were doing (It's pretty obvious that all the wood and ram purchases were made under the banner of more Royal Navy ships), and used Sartierian resources for themselves, they shall subsidize (50%, or something thereabouts) the construction of the first four House Royals that Tellar and Capo each order, as well as subsidize the maintenance costs for 5 years.
This acts as a check on Sonissimmo, as well as giving us several benefits and sending a couple messages. First off, that means that we can actually afford to
get Royals, which would be extremely difficult with our current income otherwise. By splitting the cost rather than forcing Sonissimmo to cover the entire amount, it breaks down the idea that "Tellar and Capo are taking advantage of Sonissimmo to strengthen themselves before they divvy up Greater Etala".
All in all, this seems like a good way to get the most out of this little fiasco. Not overly punitive, and fitting with our public line about safeguarding Sartier. Showing forbearance here will pay off greater dividends than taking the stick to all parties involved.
but it's my stupid 
